A News Blog

Keeping you in the know in the world of politics

TUSCALOOSA | Pardon me if I don’t join the hand-wringing among Democrats about the damage supposedly being done to the party by the protracted battle between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the presidential nomination. That is, as long as they stick to the issues and lay off the personal attacks, which not only will damage the party, but as recent polls have shown, will also drive independents to Sen. John McCain, who will be the Republican opponent in… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | While I still prefer to think of Hillary Clinton as The Terminator — she’ll keep coming at her competition even if there’s only a hand and party of an arm left to crawl across the floor — some are now fretting over what one prominent Democrat told Jake Tapper of ABC News is the ominous “Tonya Harding Option.” Harding, you may remember, is the Olympic-caliber figure skater who had a thug friend of hers kneecap her major competition,… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | The Associated Press reported the grim news this morning that the death toll of American in Iraq has now reached 4,000. (See update at bottom.) This comes five years and five days after we invaded Iraq to look for those weapons of mass destruction that weren’t there and to make America safer from terrorism. Of course the number of American dead pales in comparison to the untold number of Iraqis, both civilians and “insurgents” who have died during… Read More »

Mar 16, 2008 TOMMY STEVENSON: Election process more complex than ever At Large The 2008 presidential election year suddenly seems to have more parts that a Rube Goldberg device, despite the fact we already know it all boils down to one of three people, all of them members of the United States Senate. And those moving parts aren’t confined just to the remaining 11 primaries and caucuses and the question that is looming large over in the Democratic Party –… Read More »

FORT MORGAN | In all the folderol about the intemperate remarks made by Barack Obama’s pastor — remarks he has thoroughly repudiated — the flip side of the coin goes all but ignored by our opining classes. One of the most outrageous claims made by Obama’s preacher (one of the four posted on YouTube and repeated in an endless loop on cable television) is one in which he said the “chickens have come home to roost” right after 9-11. Of… Read More »

On this date five years ago today we invaded Iraq and I entered rehab. I furtively glimpsed images of the “shock and awe” attacks at the nurses station in the unit I had to spend a mandatory, but unneeded (I had had one last Guinness at Kerry’s Irish Pub on Decatur Street in New Orleans on St. Patrick’s day, two days earlier), stay in dotox. I got out a couple of weeks later, the day they pulled that statue down… Read More »

The most concrete sign that U.S. Rep. Artur Davis has crossed the political Rubicon and there is no turning back in his decision to seek the Alabama governor’s mansion in 2010 is his employment of a polling outfit. Anzalone Liszt Research, which has offices in Montgomery and Washington, has been in business since 1994 and bills itself as a “polling, analysis and strategy” firm. A few days ago, John Anzalone assured me that “Artur Davis would not only be a… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | With the surprise announcement by U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, one of two Alabama Democrats in congress, that he will not seek a 10th term in his Tennessee Valley district, two of the state’s seven seats in the U.S. House of Representatives will be open this year. Earlier this year Republican Rep. Terry Everett, who represents southeast Alabama’s 2nd District, announced he would not seek reelection in a district in which he has already had some tough reelection battles… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | It is going to be a dull year for local politics in Tuscaloosa County, with only seven races on the ballot and only one of them countywide. The race that everyone will see on their ballot is for Tuscaloosa County District Judge, place 4, where incumbent Democrat John England is running for reelection. Otherwise, the local races will be conducted within county commission and county school board districts. The Republicans, who have five incumbents up for reelection, have… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King obviously views with fear and loathing the possibility that his fellow member of Congress, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, could be elected president. He is also obviously a fool. Last week King said that terrorists would be “dancing in the streets” if Obama were elected president in a rant that also included racists allusions to his Kenyan heritage on his father’s side and bigoted opinions about the Islamic fate. Of course he brought… Read More »